


Growing up

by tucuxi



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-04
Updated: 2011-02-04
Packaged: 2017-10-16 20:56:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/169272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tucuxi/pseuds/tucuxi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Civilians look at him, at this small, young figure who pulls shelter from the ground, and works himself to exhaustion, and some love him, and some fear him, and none of the children are allowed to play with him.</i></p><p>A look at Yamato as a child.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Growing up

The boy who will be called Tenzo, and will be called Yamato, and who will answer to a handful other names as well, over the years, graduates from the Academy when he is six years old, and becomes a chuunin several months later, just before his seventh birthday. He is one of the youngest chuunin in Konoha's history - but not _the_ youngest. That distinction rests with Hatake Kakashi, who is three years older, and graduated at _five_. The boy looks up to Kakashi, who is one of the few role-models he has who is close to his age. And if it becomes a bit of hero-worship over time, well, they interact rarely enough that him putting Kakashi on a bit of a pedestal isn't really a problem.

The boy doesn't see much of the battlefield until years after he graduates: instead, he goes out with genin teams and helps reconstruct villages. He learns to control his implanted _kekkei genkai_ as if it were his own, and not the result of a freakish experiment: he learns to grow houses from the ground in mere moments, though he isn't able to do anything very large, or very ornate until he's trained and grown and increased his chakra reserves.

Civilians look at him, at this small, young figure who pulls shelter from the ground, and works himself to exhaustion, and some love him, and some fear him, and none of the children are allowed to play with him. Don't bother shinobi-san, their mothers say, He's very busy, and must be very tired. Just be quiet: you can play tag tomorrow, once they have gone. Sometimes his genin teammates hang out with him; sometimes they don't.

When he asks if he can go fight, he is told that he is too young (Kakashi wasn't too young), or that he is too valuable to risk.

When the war ends, he is ten; when the Kyuubi attacks, he is eleven, and is tasked with constructing barriers behind which the townspeople and children can hide. He hears later that Kakashi landed a hit on the creature, and nearly lost his hand, its chakra was so destructive.

He joins ANBU in his teens, and takes on the name Tenzo, and the Cat mask. He is assigned to a squad led by Hound, and it's probably a good thing that he doesn't learn for a month that Hatake Kakashi and Hound are one and the same. By the time he finds out, he's saved Kakashi's life at least once, (and vice versa, of course), and there's no risk of him freezing up around the man he looked up to as a child. Having met, faceless, they work well together, and Kakashi is one of the most inventive captains he'll ever have, when it comes to making use of Tenzo's abilities. He is also the one most likely to run Tenzo into the ground, but Kakashi does that to the whole squad, when necessary, and sometimes pushes himself too far: Tenzo carries him back to Konoha more than once, though unlike some of his squad-mates, he never thinks Kakashi's effort was wasted.

Tenzo considers quitting ANBU when Kakashi does, but decides against it.

He gets the tattoo on his left shoulder re-inked when he's twenty, and again when he's twenty five, keeping the lines crisp and unblurred by time.


End file.
